Category US

Associated Press lays off news staff as cost cutting hits home

1 comment By Andy Soloman Filed in US, Uncategorized, journalism, news, newspapers, online revenue, publishing Tagged with AP, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, google, jobs, Los Angeles Times, Microsoft, news, news wires, Newspaper, publishing, recession, rupert murdoch, Tom Curley, United States November 18th, 2009 @ 10:31 am

: Image via Wikipedia

The Associated Press has laid off “dozens” of news staff as part of the agency‘s bid to reduce staffing costs by 10% this year.

The moves come as the 163-year-old cooperative wire agency has grappled with falling revenues, mutiny from its members and well-publicised battles against search engines and aggregators that it accuses of making money off the back of its services.

While US news media was buzzing yesterday as first word of the cuts began to filter out, the AP — which prides itself on fast breaking news — was itself uncharacteristically slow in reporting what was happening.

When it eventually came, the AP story didn’t say how many staff were being laid off, but the News Media Guild, which represents around 1,300 employees in the US, said as of Tuesday evening 38 Guild-covered reporters, editors and photographers had been told they were no longer required. It dubbed the day “Black Tuesday”.

AP said its cost cutting goal was set late last year as it prepared to lower fees for newspapers and broadcasters that had been hit by recession and the shift of advertising to the Internet.

The AP story said:

AP’s revenue is expected to fall about 6 percent this year to roughly $700 million.

Hoping to minimize layoffs, the AP imposed a hiring freeze late last year and offered early retirement packages to longtime employees over the summer. About 100 opted for those packages.

It’s been a tough year for the news business in the United States. Newspaper circulation across the country plunged by an average 10.6% in the six months to 30 September, while earlier this month the struggling Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co newspapers planned to do an AP cold turkey for a week as part of a test to see if all ties with the news agency can be severed next year.

The AP has promised members rate reductions averaging around 20%, but with its content perceived to be increasingly less relevant and the costs for the service harder to sustain, many question what the future holds for the news agency.

AP supremeo Tom Curley has been aggressively fighting (alongside Rupert Murdoch) giant news search services such as Google and Microsoft saying they should be made to pay for AP content. Curley says sites such as Google have reaped a fortune off AP articles, photos and video without paying fair compensation.

AP lays off employees to hit cost-cutting goal (sfgate.com)
Tribune Co. Papers Set to Go Almost AP-less For Trial (marketingpilgrim.com)
Playing it smart at Reuters (unlike AP) (dailykos.com)
News Corp Sites ‘To Be Removed From Google’ (news.sky.com)

Rate this post

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Rock’n'roller Josh Tyrangiel to leave Time.com, pogo over to lead BusinessWeek

0 comments By Andy Soloman Filed in US, Uncategorized, magazines, media, news, publishing Tagged with bernard madoff, Bloomberg, bruce springsteen, BusinessWeek, dixie chicks, editor, george clooney, josh tyrangiel, magazines, norman pearlstine, publishing, stephen adler, Time Inc, time warner, time.com, warren buffet November 17th, 2009 @ 5:55 pm

: Rock’n'roller Tyrangiel to head BusinessWeek

Michael Bloomberg’s new play thing, the top (but loss-making) BusinessWeek magazine will have 37-year-old Josh Tyrangiel as its new editor, once the acquisition from McGraw-Hill completes in December.

In his “On Media” blog within the BusinessWeek site, Tom Lowry wrote today:

By selecting the 37-year-old Tyrangiel who is not a business journalist per se, Bloomberg clearly wants a leader for BusinessWeek who is not only a highly-regarded editor but someone who has demonstrated he knows how to reach a wider array of readers in both print and online.

Tyrangiel, a deputy managing editor at Time magazine and the editor of Time.com, is actually a bit of a rock’n'roller. Prior to taking the reins at Time.com he was the magazine’s music critic and also wrote for publications such as Vibe and Rolling Stone. While he may never have interviewed Bernard Madoff or Warren Buffet, he can count Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney and the Dixie Chicks among his interviewees.

Bloomberg’s chief content officer and former Time Inc. editor in chief Norman Pearlstine, was reported by Lowry as saying:

“I saw Josh in a number of leadership positions as he took on increasing responsibilities at TIME.”

He continued:

“Working closely with him …. I came to appreciate his intelligence, curiosity, energy, and integrity. Josh is recognized within Time Inc. and its parent, Time Warner Inc., as an ‘editor’s editor’ and a natural leader. His understanding of the ways in which print and online publications can work together will serve Bloomberg well as we expand our consumer media offerings.”

Changes have been sweeping through BusinessWeek since the sale to Bloomberg was announced last month. Jobs have gone and staff fear the venerable old magazine will become a promotional tool for Bloomberg, with the real business being done online. With his strong online credentials, Tyrangiel, who will replace Stephen Adler, may well help confirm those fears. His tenure at Time.com saw web traffic soar from 400 million page views in 2006 to what could be an estimated 1.8 billion page views this year, Lowry wrote.

Top Time Editor To Become BusinessWeek’s New Editor

Posted by: Tom Lowry on November 17

Josh Tyrangiel .jpg
Josh Tyrangiel, a deputy managing editor at Time magazine and the top editor of its online operations, will become the first editor of a Bloomberg-owned BusinessWeek. The acquisition, announced Oct. 13, is expected to close in early December.

By selecting the 37-year-old Tyrangiel who is not a business journalist per se, Bloomberg clearly wants a leader for BusinessWeek who is not only a highly-regarded editor but someone who has demonstrated he knows how to reach a wider array of readers in both print and online. A major reason Bloomberg LP executives pursued BusinessWeek was to reach a broader audience beyond Wall Street and the professional investor communities.

“I saw Josh in a number of leadership positions as he took on increasing responsibilities at TIME,” says Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg’s chief content officer and a former editor-in-chief of Time Inc., Time’s parent. “Working closely with him …. I came to appreciate his intelligence, curiosity, energy, and integrity. Josh is recognized within Time Inc. and its parent, Time Warner Inc., as an ‘editor’s editor’ and a natural leader. His understanding of the ways in which print and online publications can work together will serve Bloomberg well as we expand our consumer media offerings.”

In some media circles, Tyrangiel was considered a leading candidate to succeed Time managing editor Richard Stengel. According to sources, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was so impressed with Tyrangiel that he tried to recruit him to be come the editor of CNN.com, the online arm of the 24-hour cable news channel, but Time Inc.’s current editor-in-chief John Huey intervened and convinced Tyrangiel to stay at Time with the promise that he might one day succeed Stengel.

During his tenure at Time.com, Tyrangiel boosted the Web site’s traffic from 400 million page views in 2006 to what could be an estimated 1.8 billion page views this year. Previous to Time, Tyrangiel worked at Rolling Stone and Vibe magazines and served as a news producer at MTV.

“Josh Tyrangiel will be a tremendous asset as we build the market presence of BusinessWeek backed by Bloomberg’s global multimedia news organization, to create the most compelling business news for the most sought-after readers.,” said Bloomberg L.P. President Daniel Doctoroff.

Tyrangiel will report to Pearlstine, who in turn will report on editorial matters to Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief. “Norm and Josh are the ideal team to deliver a terrific business magazine that brings the most trusted, most influential and most important news to a global audience of thought leaders,” said Winkler.

Tyrangiel will work alongside BusinessWeek executive editors Ellen Pollock and John Byrne and managing editor Ciro Scotti. Pearlstine announced earlier that they would continue in their roles at the magazine. Tyrangiel succeeds Stephen J. Adler, who announced his resignation as editor-in-chief on Oct. 20.

Rate this post

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Black days for US newspapers as circulation plunges

1 comment By Andy Soloman Filed in US, Uncategorized, journalism, newspapers, online revenue, publishing Tagged with advertising revenue, audit bureau of circulation, circulation, newspapers, readership, recession, revenue October 26th, 2009 @ 6:07 pm

The only US newspaper to show circulation increase

If there is still anyone that doubts there is a crisis in the newspaper publishing industry they must be very well hidden. It seems that as every day passes more bad news emerges. Today, it was the turn of the US Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) to hammer in new coffin nails and paint a picture of massively accelerating decline.

Consider this — across the 379 newspapers in the mix, daily circulation fell by an average 10.6% to 30.39 million copies for the six months to 30 September 2009 compared to 34 million copies in the same period last year. For the sake of comparison, the decline this time round was more than double that in the previous period. I’m not a betting man, but unless there is radical change it is becoming a question of when not if major newspapers go under.

But there is more to this than just the market telling newspapers it is no longer as interested in their products as it once was. Unlike other recessions, this time round responses to the grim economics from publishers is fuelling a vicious cycle of accelerating decline. As readership shrinks and ad revenue fades, publishers are left with little choice other to reduce costs in every way possible. Huge staff cuts means the underlying quality proposition of the title is eroded, while cuts in the numbers of copies distributed free or heavily discounted means the reach of the publication is adversely impacted. Result — circulation falls further and ad revenue declines faster as the ABCs are a key indicator for businesses deciding where to place their advertising spend. Ow. That really hurts.

Only one of the top 25 newspapers was credited with circulation growth. The News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal’s circulation rose 0.6% to 2.02 million.

Top 25 US newspapers by circulation (source: ABC)

1	Wall Street Journal	2,024,269	+0.61%
2	USA Today	1,900,116	-17.15%
3	New York Times	927,851	-7.28%
4	Los Angeles Times	657,851	-11.05%
5	The Washington Post	582,844	-6.4%
6	New York Daily News	544,167	-13.98%
7	New York Post	508,042	-18.77%
8	Chicago Tribune	465,892	-9.72%
9	Houston Chronicle	384,892	-9.72%
10	Philadelphia Inquirer	361,480	n/a
11	Newsday	357,124	-5.40%
12	The Denver Post	340,949	-14.24
13	The Arizona Republic	316,874	-12.30%
14	Star Tribune, Minneapolis	304,543	-5.53%
15	Chicago Sun-Times	275,641	-11.98%
16	The Plain Dealer, Cleveland	271,180	-11.24%
17	Detroit Free Press	269,729	-9.56%
18	The Boston Globe	264,105	-18.48%
19	The Dallas Morning News	263,810	-22.16%
20	The Seattle Times	263,588	n/a
21	San Francisco Chronicle	251,782	-25.82%
22	The Oregonian	249,163	-12.06%
23	The Star-Ledger, Newark	246,006	-22.22%
24	San Diego Union-Tribune	242,705	-10.05%
25	St Petersberg (Fla) Times	240,147	-10.70%